Saturday, 8 December 2012

AUGI Top DAUG 2012 - The Results

Building on the success of last year's contest at AU, KnowledgeSmart and AUGI once again teamed up to provide an interactive skills assessment, across 8 popular Autodesk software tracks: 3ds Max, AutoCAD 2D, AutoCAD Civil 3D, Inventor, Navisworks, Revit Architecture, Revit MEP and Revit Structure.

Here's a brief history of the TD contest, from AUGI. And here's a summary of last year's competition.

Once again, we had some cool prizes up for grabs. Track winners walked away with a $100 USD Amazon voucher (a combination of high scores and fastest times determined the winner of each track) and the overall winner won a HP laptop and a free pass to AU2013.

Here's a shot of the contest rules board:

We spent several hours on the Monday, setting up 18 networked PC's in the exhibition hall, at the AUGI stand. We got off to a slow start when the exhibition hall manager decided that the PC's were facing the wrong way round. So we dismantled all 18 PC's, turned them around 180 degrees and wired them all back in again! (Which, of course, we were delighted to do!).

Now properly oriented, all 144 copies of Autodesk software needed checking, then all the KS sample data sets had to be uploaded to each machine and checked again. Big thanks to Joe Croser and Mike Johnson for their help in accomplishing this rather onerous task!

Here's how we looked when we were all nicely set up:

The competition ran over 2 days (1 x 3 hour slot on day one, then 1 x 2 hour and 1 x 3 hour slot on day two). Contestants had to answer 10 questions, using the 2013 version of each software title. Each session was limited to just 10 minutes, so people had to work fast! Special thanks to awesome AUGI team members, Kristin, Bob, Michael, Donnia and Richard, for briefing users and making sure everything ran smoothly.

Here are the Top DAUG's in action:

By the end of the contest, we posted 336 results, with 0% failed tests. Considering the hotel web connectivity was, at times, positively creaking with the competition for bandwidth in the main hall, we are rather proud of the resilience demonstrated by the KS system. Particularly when we saw some users juggling a beer in one hand, a mouse in the other and a bag of popcorn balanced somewhere in the middle! (Editor note: When you're writing technical specs for software, somehow you never quite anticipate all of the live scenarios your code might end up experiencing! :) ).

Throughout the competition, we posted a rolling list of the top 10 contestants for each track, on the AUGI big screen.

The Results

Congratulations to the following contestants, who won their respective software tracks:

And a special mention to the overall winner of AUGI Top DAUG 2012:

Fred Wismer

Analysis

So, let's take a detailed look at the results of this year's Top DAUG competition.

Overall

No. of Tests Completed: 336

Overall Average: 41% in 9 mins 26 secs

(NB the average score for 2011 was 53%).

Track 1 - 3ds MaxTrack Winner: James Clarke (NB James is the Max track winner for the second year running).

Winning Score: 75% in 10 mins 0 secs

Top 10 Contestants:

No. Completed: 13

Group Average: 17% in 9 mins 34 secs

Track 2 - AutoCAD 2D

Track Winner: Glenn Sinclair

Winning Score: 100% in 8 mins 5 secs

Top 10 Contestants:

No. Completed: 113

Group Average: 37% in 9 mins 45 secs

Track 3 - AutoCAD Civil 3D

Track Winner: Fred Wismer

Winning Score: 100% in 7 mins 30 secs

Top 10 Contestants:

No. Completed: 46

Group Average: 61% in 8 mins 20 secs

Track 4 - Inventor

Track Winner: Tracy Chadwick

Winning Score: 60% in 10 mins 0 secs

Top 10 Contestants:

No. Completed: 16

Group Average: 22% in 9 mins 50 secs

Track 5 - Navisworks

Track Winner: James AustinWinning Score: 80% in 10 mins 0 secs

Top 10 Contestants:

No. Completed: 19Group Average: 42% in 9 mins 34 secs

Track 6 - Revit Architecture

Track Winner: Michael Patrick

Winning Score: 98% in 9 mins 30 secs

Top 10 Contestants:

No. Completed: 84

Group Average: 55% in 9 mins 20 secs

Track 7 - Revit MEP

Track Winner: Maxime Sanschagrin

Winning Score: 53% in 10 mins 0 secs

Top 10 Contestants:

No. Completed: 26

Group Average: 34% in 9 mins 50 secs

Track 8 - Revit Structure

Track Winner: Eric Bernier

Winning Score: 95% in 10 mins 0 secs

Top 10 Contestants:

No. Completed: 19

Group Average: 43% in 9 mins 32 secs

Popular Tracks

The most popular tracks, in order of completed tests, were as follows:

AutoCAD 2D - 113 results

Revit Architecture - 84 results

AutoCAD Civil 3D - 46 results

Revit MEP - 26 results

Navisworks - 19 results

Revit Structure - 19 results

Inventor - 16 results

3ds Max - 13 results

Range of scores

Interestingly, across the 8 tracks, we saw scores ranging from 0% to 100%. Here is a summary of both ends of the performance scale:

Rebecca Frangipane - track winner from last year, top 5 finish in Revit Structure, plus a very good Revit Architecture score.

John Fout and Ben Downey for completing 4 tracks apiece.

Boys vs Girls

Finally, let's take a look at the demographic breakdown of the competition. Out of 336 contestants, 303 were male and 33 female. The average overall performance for each group breaks down like this:

Girls: 49% in 9 mins 18 secs

Boys: 41% in 9 mins 29 secs

So, that's Top DAUG done and dusted for another year. A thoroughly enjoyable 3 days at AU2012. 336 completed tests, across 8 popular Autodesk software applications. Once again, the overall standard was extremely high, with some outstanding individual performances from our track winners and top 10 contestants. And once again the Civil 3D track takes the overall prize!

Congratulations to all our winners. Thanks to the AUGI team for all their support, with a special mention for AUGI President, David Harrington and past-President, Mark Kiker. Lastly, a big thank you to everyone who took part in this year's contest.